The Kat Came Back
by beb
Summary: Someone has kidnapped Jazz Fenton. Who? And why does it seem like its someone Danny knows and what evil plan do they have for his sister? A sequel to "Find the Ghost Boy."
1. Chapter 1

It was Danny's night for helping clean up after supper, so while his mom wrapped up leftovers and set the clock on the refrigerator's time-locks -- Jack Fenton was on a Maddie imposed diet -- Danny scraped plates and loaded them into the dish washer. Because his father had made improvements to the washer Danny always made a point of standing off to one side when he finally pressed the 'on' button. Pleased that nothing had exploded, Danny dried his hands and walked towards the living room only to find his sister, Jazz, waiting for him in the hallway. Warily he asked, "what's up?"

"Come with me," she said and lead him to the sofa and flicked the remote to an entertainment news channel.

"Jazz, you know I hate celebrity gossip."

"Just wait."

Danny was tapping his fingers irritably for most of the half-hour show before his sister grabbed his arm and pointed, "there!"

The anchor threw the broadcast to a stand-up in Vail, Colorado, where Vlad Master was entertaining an entourage with his new girlfriend, Felixa Cowen.

"Good," Danny said after the bit was over. "Now that Vlad has a girlfriend maybe he'll leave Mom alone."

"Danny, this is all wrong. Vlad Master has held a torch for Mom for twenty years. He's tried to kill you, me and Dad on several occasions -- just to get Mom alone. There is no way he would stop all that for some -- some bimbo!"

"And maybe he had finally gotten it through his thick head that Mom isn't available. It could well be that Vlad has finally decided to move with his life."

"Danny, I've studied all this very closely. Nothing in my calculations says that Vlad has or ever will 'move on.' He's up to something and we have got to be vigilant about it."

"Jazz, you were wrong that time when you thought Mom and Dad were getting a divorce. I don't think your record is infallible."

Jazz ignored what was for her a sore point. "There's something fishy here, Danny. Look at the way that woman was hanging on to Vlad. I don't think she ever let go of him. And you know that Vlad doesn't like to be touched!"

"Being in love makes people do strange stuff."

"Danny, I'm serious..."

"So am I!"

"And she wears big hats and those big wrap-around sunglasses. It's almost like she's wearing a disguise.

Danny shrugged and got up to leave.

"And when was Vlad ever interested in extreme snowboarding!"

"He's in Vail. How can he be a threat to us here," Danny said walking away.

***

The Pep Club was busy during lunch period decorating the cafeteria for the upcoming opening of the basketball season. Members were taping up posters all around the room while the cheerleaders, in uniform, were circulating through the room signing up volunteers to help on the games. Danny's head did an owl-like 180 as Paulina, the pretty head cheerleader walked past his table. He breathed in deep her perfume and sighed as he slowly let it out.

"You know perfume was invented to hide the stench of people not bathing, don't you?" Sam said, rolling her eyes.

"But nowadays perfumes are designed to enhance the natural pheromones of women," Tucker cut in. His eyes were also tracking Paulina's movement around the room. Sam scowled at him.

"You know you're so far below her radar that she didn't even bother to try to sign you up for anything."

"So?"

"So!" Sam sputtered, at a loss for what to say. "All she's doing is signing up people to volunteer. You hate volunteering. You never wanted to help me on my Earth Day project!"

"First of all, that was a protest, not volunteering. Secondly, you wanted me to dress up like a side of beef and ask people how they felt about talking to their food."

"It was street theater, Danny. It would have been very effective if you'd gone through with it."

"She wanted to wrap me in bacon," Tucker added. "Normally I like food wrapped in bacon, but..."

"OK, OK, maybe the meat protest wasn't as well thought out as I'd like. Still I can't believe how much boys let their gonads do all their thinking."

"I have one word for you, Sam: Gregor."

Sam felt the heat mount to her cheeks. She was surprised that something didn't burst into flames, her cheeks were so hot.

"Don't ever mention that name again!" she whispered.

"Like girls don't think with their gonads, too." Danny teased.

"Uh, Danny. I don't think girls have gonads." Tucker said.

"Well, whatever girls think with when they get all gooey eyed over some boy."

"He had a cool accent."

"He was from Michigan!"

"He was so goth-like!"

"Danny," Tucker interrupted. "You were the one who was so jealous about Sam having a boyfriend. Gregor wasn't your finest hour either."

It was Danny's turn to blush. He played with the food on his plate for a moment. "Vlad's got himself a girlfriend," he said to fill in the silence.

"I thought Vlad was gay," Tucker said, then added, "Not that there's anything wrong with that."

"Didn't you say he had a thing for your mother?" Sam asked, relieved that the subject of her infatuation with a poseur was behind them.

"No way!" Tucker exclaimed, "when did that happen?"

"Twenty years ago; when he, Mom and Dad were in college. He's had a thing for her all this time."

"I thought he was trying to kill your Dad because of the Ecto-Acne incident?"

"That and that Dad and Mom got married while he was in the hospital recovering."

"Why didn't you tell us this before now?"

"I thought I had. After he had infected you and Sam with Ecto-Acne and I had to get Clockwork's help to cure you. I thought I told you everything."

"I think he was reprogramming his iPod at the time." Sam suggested. "Probably wasn't listening."

"So who's this girl Vlad is running around with?' Tucker asked, "Anyone famous?" he added.

"That's the funny part. She's not anyone famous, but he's in Vail, Colorado, right now snowboarding with her."

"When did Vlad Masters become a fan of snowboarding?" Sam wondered.

"Exactly! When did Vlad ever go in for sports, let alone an extreme sport like snowboarding."

"It's hardly an 'extreme' sport, Danny. Everybody does it these days."

Danny opened his mouth to object but Sam continued. "But you're right, the only sport Vlad has ever enjoyed has been hunting Fentons. So who is this girlfriend?"

"Someone called Felixa Cowen."

"What does she look like?"

"Like a woman wearing a parka and sunglasses."

"Did you google her?" Tucker asked.

"Do you have any idea how many hits there are for 'Vlad Master and Felixa Cowen'?"

"Ah -- six million?"

"Close. Three hundred thousand hits. I must have read a hundred of them last night. Most of them just reprinted the same two or three news reports." Danny sighed. "About all I can find out is that her name is Felixa Cowen, they're fabulously happy and have been dating for 'a while'. Know how many hits there are for just 'Felixa Cowen'?"

"Why do I think the name is going to be 'zero'." Sam answered.

"Zero. It's like she doesn't exist."

"A lot of people aren't visible on the Internet," Sam said. "Doesn't mean they don't exist."

"Maybe she's his little inflatable doll."

"Don't go there, Tuck" Sam said with a tone of disgust. Of course Tucker continued to go there.

"I hear the Japanese have done wonders with robots. To smile and walk and climb stairs. I suppose it's just a matter of time before they --"

The school bell rang announcing the end of lunch, sparing Sam from hearing what Tucker really thought on the matter.

***

Ghosts are made up of ectoplasm, a substance that has neither form nor weight in this world. That's how ghosts can pass through walls, fly, turn invisible and so on; they're not really there. When Danny became a ghost he acquired all these powers and more. One of the strangest, though, was his ghost sense. When his life in danger from another ghost his breath would suddenly blow cold. So cold that the moisture in it would fog up. Ghosts often lowered the temperature in the rooms they occupied. Danny wondered if they were drawing energy from the heat of the air molecules the way plants absorb sunlight for their energy. Danny would have loved to talk to his father about this but on subjects that cut too close to the idea that he was a half-ghost Danny shied away from. So when on a Saturday morning as he was walking to the Nasty Burger to meet up with Tucker and Sam, and his breathe turned to blue fog, Danny knew he was in trouble. He just did not know where the danger was coming from.

A quick look around showed him that no one was on the sidewalk before or after him. The street to his left was empty of car as was the parking lot to his right. The office building whose workers filled up the lot during the week was closed. Danny took a quick look around the ground. There were some manhole ahead but nothing seems to be coming it there. He looked up -- just in time to roll out of the way of a pair of metallic boots hurtling down from the sky.

Danny scrambled to his feet and looked for some shelter. He couldn't change out here in the open. Even if the street looked completely deserted one never knew if someone mighty be watching. He was in the middle of a long block. Nothing, absolutely nothing he could use for cover was around. He took one quick look at the person or thing that almost crushed him, then sprinted across the empty parking lot for the shadows of an alleyway.

His attacker was human-shaped. A six or seven foot tall grey metallic body with a mirrored visor that hid either the robotic workings of this device or the eyes of a person inside some kind of armored suit. There were no clothes or marking on the things body. Nothing to indicate who, what, when, where or why it was attacking him. It looked like a medieval knight.

The machine had landed heavily on its feet. It tottered for a moment then fell down. It bounded to its feet a moment later and took after Danny with long, loping strides.

Something bright and purply-pink splashed past Danny, striking the wall of the building forming one side of the alley. It exploded there, showering Danny with a hail of stinging rocks and pebbles. "Cripes!" Danny exclaimed as he rounded the end of a dumpster set up in the alley. It smelling gagtastically of rotten food but Danny didn't notice as he pull up short at the other end, pushing a second dumpster out of his way, making a space small enough for him to crawl into.

He was crouched here, trying hard not to pant as the metallic figure ran past. For wearing steel shoes it was light on its feet. It also seemed more to be hopping than running, suggesting that robot or armor, it was stronger than the average person.

Danny knew it would be back in a moment so he slipped out of his hiding place and concentrating for a moment, slipped from Fenton to Phantom. He immediately turned invisible and levitated ten feet into the air, where he didn't expect the silver knight, as he dubbed it, would find him.

From his vantage point he could see the silver knight slide to a halt at the end of the alley. It spun around, tossed away a couple garbage cans with ease, then came charging back the way it came. It moved slower, and paused to test each door and window of the buildings that formed the alleyway.

Danny held his breath as the silver knight moved under him. It lifted the lids to the dumpsters and peered inside. It looked on the ground and may have noticed fresh scratch marks from when he had moved the one dumpster. It stood still for a moment, seeming to listen for something. Danny's heart was pounding so hard he half-expected his stalker could hear it, as unlikely as that would be.

Suddenly the silvery armored person jumped to the top of the dumpster with one powerful lunge and from there leap up and out into the alleyway -- right at Danny. With a gasp Danny let his breath out and dashed forward, out of the attacker's way.

But he had been too slow. A metal gauntlet closed around one ankle and dragged him out of the sky as the silver knight came crashing back to the earth.

Danny twisted as they fell and threw a gout of ecto-plasm as his attacker. The spectral energy seemed to bounce off the metal surface harmlessly, but it did cause it to loose its grip on his foot. Danny jerked free and sprinted ahead. He climbed into the air, gaining altitude and spurted ahead as fast as he could.

His attacker crashed to the earth with a heavy clang. It rolled to its feet with noticeable agility. Suddenly two small pods erupted from the waist of the metal outfit. Flames erupted and the silver knight was suddenly in the air, too. The belt-mounted rockets must have packed quite punch because the knight was quickly catching up with Danny.

He took a corner at a tight angle, hoping the silver knight could not make the turn but the tiny rockets readjusted their angles and the knight skidded around the corner.

Danny tried shooting more ecto-plasm at his attacker. This seemed only to encourage his attacker to extrude another blister, this time on its wrist, from which it fired answering bolts of spectral fire. Danny twisted around a few more intersections, hoping to loose his attacked in the jumble of tight turns or at least make he, she or it use up so much rocket fuel that they would have to give up pursuit. Apparently it had a greater supply of rocket fuel than Danny expected because it just kept on coming.

Maybe he should play on his attacker's weaknesses, such as its physical weight. As a ghost Danny didn't have any weight, mass or inertia. He reversed directions and charged at the silver knight. But instead of trying to reverse directions or even to move aside to avoid Danny's hurtling form, his attacked reached for a package mounted on its waist and heaved it at Danny. The package expanded with a puff, spreading out into a weighted net. Danny tried to duck but the net was too close, It wrapped about him tightly, electrified currents running through its webbing, shocking him into immobility.

Danny crashed onto the rooftop of a building. He struggled to get out of the netting while his foe had time to brake and fly back to where he lay.

Silently it landed and slowly walked towards Danny. In all this time it had said nothing. Slowly, methodically, it raised an arm with a blaster blister open on top. But Danny, working frantically, had thrown off most of the netting, enough to regain use of his ghost powers. Just as the silver knight fired Danny went intangible and fell through the roof into the offices below them. He continued down a couple more floors, before scooting off to the side and out of the building. Danny continued distancing himself from his attacker.

From the safety of distance it looked like his attacker was shooting a bunch of holes in the roof. Did he think Danny had remained just under the roof and was trying to wing him with one of these blind shots, or was the silver knight having a temper tantrum?

Danny flew back to FentonWorks where he could be safe behind his Parent's company's security devices. He plopped back on his bed and wondered about his latest enemy. The electrified net was something Skulker, the Ghost Big Game Hunter had often used. And the weapons and rocket engines mounted in extrudable blisters -- that was also some of Skulker's stuff. But Skulker didn't use full-body armor. And he liked to talk -- a lot. Skulker couldn't move without boasting about it. Well, maybe not as much as Technus, but he couldn't have remained as quiet as this enemy had. So this silver knight couldn't be Skulker but had access to Skulker's technology. That didn't seem likely, either. Skulker wasn't known for his sharing. So maybe someone had found the same source of technology as Skulker did. But Danny was pretty sure that Skulker built his own stuff.

When he found his thoughts going around and around in the same circle, he gave up thinking about it and called Sam and Tucker. He would be wary the next few days just in case. Getting attacked by unknown ghosts wasn't that unusual for him and he had learned that if nothing came of it after a couple days, nothing would.

***

Jazz walked into the living room and snagged the remote out of Danny's hand before he even knew she was there.

"Hey! I was watching that," he protested as she flipped through the menu for the channel she wanted.

"A badly drawn cartoon show about a hyperactive eleven-year? Danny you should be ashamed of yourself."

"It's timeless pratfall humor."

"This is more important."

'This' was the celebrity gossip channel.

"What? Vlad's a new girlfriend?"

"Just watch."

"Live from Cozumel, Mexico," the reporter began. "We're talking to America's richest man, Vlad Masters. What brings you to Mexico's vacation coast?"

"The sun, the fine hotels, the exotic reefs, Dana. We're planning on scuba - diving the reefs while we're here."

"Ya ya, ya, ya, barf!" Danny growled. "Can I have the remote, please?"

"Look at who he's with," Jazz directed.

"It's that Felixa Cowen woman. So Vlad's still dating the same woman."

"No, look at what she's wearing!"

It took a while for the camera to drift away from 'America's richest man' ("Tenth richest" Danny groused) to his companion. Vlad had been wearing knee-length baggy pants, showing off his naked and surprisingly well-toned abs. Felixa Cowen, however, was wearing a brightly colored wet-suit with full-length arms and legs. A Straw hat covered her short hair and big, mirrored sunglasses once again covered her face.

Danny cast a confused look towards his sister. "So?"

"She's in Mexico! And She's not wearing a bikini!"

"Is there a law saying she has to?"

"What woman in her right mind would pass up a chance to show off her body?"

Danny considered whether this was a trick question from his sister. As a fourteen year old boy he was still hazy on why girls bought the bathing suits they did, though he appreciated how they looked in them. Felixa's wet suit hugged her body like a second skin and the effect looked pretty good to him. And don't you wear a wet suit when you're scuba diving?

"Maybe she's trying to avoid skin cancer?" Danny suggested at last.

"There's something wrong about that woman!"

"She's dating a psychopathic ghost."

"Vlad Masters isn't a psychopathic. He's more a megalomaniac. And he'd hardly tell her that he's a ghost."

"Whatever. Jazz, as long as Vlad is in Cozumel he isn't in Amity Park, and that's all I care about."

"Ohhh!" His sister growled, flung the remote on the sofa next to Danny and stalked away. Danny took one last look at Felixa Cowen before hitting the "Last Channel" button on the remote. She was, as before, holding on to Vlad's' arm. He wondered if she kept a hold of Vlad even when he went to the bathroom. Now that would be weird. The sunglasses, the big hats, people wore that kind of stuff all the time but the way Felixa Cowen kept a hand on Vlad, that seemed a little too weird.


	2. Chapter 2

The second attack came a month later. Winter had settled on Amity Park. The pond in the city park had frozen over and been opened as an ice skating rink. Danny was walking along an icy sidewalks to join Sam and Tucker there. Sam wanted to go skating. Tucker who could barely stand on ice skates, was more interested in the free wi-fi being offered in the park.

"Look at him, there, walking along all high and mighty, like he owns the place or something!"

Danny looked around. Who was talking? Were they talking about him? The voice sounded old and wheezy and kind of familiar, but there wasn't anyone in sight. Of course there were mounds of snow along the streets and sidewalks from a recent storm. Maybe someone was there out of sight. Danny shrugged and continued walking.

"What's going to happen to him shouldn't happen to a dog." That was a different voice, but also old.

"I never liked dogs." That was the first voice.

"So you're saying he's going to get what he deserves?" The second voice.

"No, you old coot. I'm just saying. Dogs, him, ptttf!"

"Who're you calling an old coot, you mangy buzzard!"

"Not so loud. The boss said just to locate and watch him."

"Oh, like he can escape?"

By now Danny had realized that the voices were coming from overhead. He looked up and found, sitting on some electric lines, a pair of buzzards. Green buzzards wearing red fezes. Ghosts.

"Now you've done it," the second voice rasped. "He's seen us. The boss isn't going to be -- gawk!" A snowball had sailed unerringly to its head. It fluttered its wings to regain its balance.

"Did you see that? Did you? He hit me with a snowball! What kind of respect is that? I ask you. The youth of today -- they have no respect for their elders!"

"The look on your face when he hit you! Ah! I haven't seen anything so funny since --" The other buzzard fell silent as it dodged a snowball heading its way. "Think you're funny punk? Well, the shoe will be on the other wing in just a moment. Ha! Then we'll see who's laughing last!"

"Quiet you, you'll give the whole thing away!" The first vulture chided.

It took Danny a second to realize what the ghost buzzard had given away. He spun around in time to see the silver knight come running around the corner of the block up ahead. It had flaming batons in both hands. It took a gigantic leap at Danny, swinging one baton down in a crushing blow to his shoulder.

Danny tried to roll with the blow, tucking his head into his chest and landing on his shoulder. He let his momentum carry him forward and found himself back on his feet. He paused in amazement for a second that something he had learned in gym class had worked. Then he swiftly changed into Danny Phantom and threw up an ecto-shield just in time to absorb the force of another baton hit.

The blow drove Danny to the ground. As the silver knight strode forward to deliver another blow, Danny kicked out, planting his foot firmly in the knight's groin. The knight staggered back a couple feet. It clutched its legs together for a moment but didn't roll up into a fetal ball the way Danny expected. He made a mental note of that as he scrambled to his feet and scooted away.

"What's the deal, man? What did I ever do to you?" Danny challenged. The knight said nothing but twirled the two batons in a fancy pattern like a pair of nunchuks. "I guess you never saw "Raiders?" Danny said and pantomimed drawing a gun, pointing his finger at the silver knight and fired a heavy burst of ecto-plasm. "Bang!" Danny said as the fire engulfed the knight.

He waited warily for the fires to burn out. The knight was still standing, though a large area of scorching marred its surface. "This is the part where you fall do dead." Danny said, and waited.

The knight took a slow step forward. Danny waited for it to say something. He had been taunting it in hopes of getting it to say something. The knight merely hunched its visored head. A blister formed on its wrist.

Danny was expecting that and when the knight's blaster fired Danny had a shield up, deflecting the fire away. The blaster had been only a distraction because barely had the blaster ceased firing than a net of ecto-plasm was flung in Danny's direction. But Danny had been expecting something like that as well. His shield expanded into a long pole, snagging the net out of the air. It dropped to the icy ground when Danny collapsed his shield.

Danny sprinted forward and grabbed the net off the ground and flung it back at the silver knight. The knight tried to shoot the net out of the air with its blaster, but the fire wetn straight through the netting. The trap fell on the knight and for a moment encumbered it. Danny fell back a few feet while the knight wrestled the net off.

What Danny really wanted to know was who was inside the armor of the silver knight and how he could prevent that man from coming after him again and again.

Danny turned invisible and threw himself into the air. He did a quick loop around the silver knight, stopping a few feet from the back of the armor. He tried to find some form of egress, an on-off switch or some other weakness he could use to penetrate the armor. But hardly had he a chance for a quick glance then the knight spun around and smacked him with an electrified gauntlet. Danny fell back stunned, barely recovering in time to avoid another baton to the face.

So the knight can track him in his invisible mode. Heat seeking or some kind of ghost detector?

They traded a few rounds of blaster fire while Danny considered his next line of attack. They were fairly evenly matched in terms of power and abilities. The knight had greater physical strength but couldn't turn intangible like Danny. This fight could go on forever until one of the other made a mistake. Danny didn't want that someone to be him.

He went invisible again but this time dropped through the sidewalk before flying forward. He estimated the distance he's traveled carefully before popping back up through the sidewalk. He was eyeball to eyeball with the back of the knight's armor. A bit closer than intended but he was able to make a better survey of the knight's armor before the wearer sensed where he was.

The knight leaped up into a backflip, swinging its batons in a cris-crossing pattern in front of it. It twisted around in mid-somersault so that it landed facing Danny. He'd taken hits from both batons during the unexpected maneuver.

Danny lay stunned on the icy sidewalk, unable to move. The knight stood over him again, batons raised high over its head.

"Awk! Time to go!" One of the fez-wearing buzzards swooped down between the knight and Danny. "Don't keep him waiting."

The knight made a swipe at the buzzard. It sped off, leaving a handful of green feathers in the air. The knight turned back to Danny who was still groggily climbing to his feet, The baton came down, it's yellow flame suddenly hissing blue-white hot. Danny rolled desperately. The baton missed him by inches. Where it struck the sidewalk the pavement exploded into fine shards. Danny threw a shield over himself and hoped for the best.

The other buzzard flew down around the knights head. "Time's wasting. And don't think we won't report how you treated us." With a hoarse 'awk' it danced away from the knight's baton.

"You don't want him mad at you!" the buzzard advised before joining its partner in flying off to the north.

The knight looked at something on its wrist, probably a quickly extruded watch and snorted. The first sound it had ever made. It jammed one of its batons into the pavement near Danny's head while extruding rockets from its waist and flying off.

Danny lay where he was for a moment wondering what had made the knight call off the fight. Then he remembered the baton that had been left behind. He had barely time to turn intangible before it exploded with a deafening roar.

***

"So, you're saying that these talking vultures work for Vlad Plasmeus but this silver knight dude is using Skulker's tech. Are you sure it wasn't Skulker under all that armor?" Tucker was seated at a park bench, trying to warm his hands with a hot cup of cocoa. The heat from the paper cup, though, was so intense that he had to take his hands away from it every couple minutes to cool them off.

"Some of it looked like Skulker's tech. Only some. But it couldn't have been Skulker because most of the armor seemed defensive and Skulker never uses defensive tech. That would undermine his standing as the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter."

"But he's really a shrimp of a ghost operating an exoskeleton that looks like a big, burly he-man." Tucker said. "So he could have been using this other, more armored exoskeleton."

"Yeah, but he likes to talk. He's always boasting about how good a hunter he is. This silver knight guy didn't say anything. Either time. Skulker would have said something!"

"Has Skulker ever worked for Vlad before?" Sam asked. She was across the table lacing up her skates. They were black, like the rest of her outfit. Even the blade was painted black except for the actual edges. She was wearing a black nylon coat, black scarf wrapped around her neck and a black knit sock coat over her hair. Her face looked pale, washed out by all the blackness but there was a contented smile on her lips. For a so-called Goth, Sam liked all kinds of physical activities.

"Actually he has, but like I said, this silver knight didn't act anything like Skulker."

"But you think Vlad is behind all this because of the vultures?"

"They work for Vlad so this silver knight has to, too. It's that simple."

"You sure it wasn't Valerie Grey in a new costume?" Sam asked as she worked on her other skate.

"Honestly, Sam, I think you're obsessed with Val." Danny scoffed. "She couldn't be the silver knight. For one thing she's working over there at the hot dog stand.

Sam looked over at the kiosk where a teen-aged Black girl was serving refreshments. "She could have been on break."

Valerie Grey used to belong to the 'In' crowd at Casper High until her father lost his business through an unfortunate lawsuit. Suddenly poor, Valerie found herself shunned like a girl with Mono. Forced to talk with losers like Sam and Danny Val had become a nicer person but the big change was that in order to help support her and her father Valeria applied for every part-time job she could find. She was always working. And if she wasn't, she was trying to kill the ghost that caused her father to lose his business. She believed that Danny Phantom was responsible and some unknown benefactor had gifted her with some very effective ghost fighting tech. The result was rather uncomfortable for Danny. He liked Val a lot, but he could never be relaxed around her in case she happened to discover his secret identity.

"My first thought was Val, too," Danny said. "But, again, she, he or it, didn't fight like Val does."

"Vlad?" Sam suggested.

"First, the vultures talked like Vlad wasn't there. Secondly, Vlad's too vain to fight me as anything but himself."

"And he doesn't need armor to kick your butt," Tucker put in with a laugh.

Danny scowled.

"Aren't you going skating?" Sam asked as she got and tested her footing.

Danny looked up confused for a moment, then remembered why he had come here. "I've got to rent some skates first," he explained, "and I'm kind of upset about this attack. You go ahead and enjoy yourself. I'll join you in a bit."

Tucker was watching Sam walk down to the frozen pond. "I don't know how she does it, he said with a shake of his head. "I can't even stand up in those things and she walks in them like her feet were firmly planted on the ground."

"You've got weak ankles Tuck. Sam, on the other hand, has really strong ankles from wearing those Doc Martens all the time."

"Don't let me hold you up if you want to get some skates and catch up with her."

"I can't get this silver knight person out of my mind, Tuck. It's driving me crazy. If it isn't Vlad and it isn't Skulker and it isn't Val but uses technology that's kind of like Skulker's and Vlad's, who can it be?

"Vlad's girlfriend?"

"What? Don't be silly. The guy I was fight was a dude. I'm sure of it.

"But you didn't see a face or anything. How would you know it wasn't a woman?" Tucker pressed him.

"He didn't have any breasts."

"He's wearing armor, dude, how would you know if he -- I mean she, has breasts or not."

"They'd make bumps in the chestal area. You know, like those women stormtroopers at the Star Wars conventions."

"Danny, I hate to break it to you, but they form those breasts bumps when they mold the chestplate. It's like the nipples on Batman's costume, it doesn't mean anything."

"Nipples?"

"On George Clooney's costume. They molded in absolutely pointless nipples on the chest of his costume. But not, I'm sad to say on Batgirl's costume."

"How does this prove that the silver knight is a woman?" Danny asked.

"It doesn't. I'm saying that a woman could be wearing that costume and you wouldn't necessarily know."

"That could explain why he didn't fall down when I kicked him in the goodies."

"You kicked a man in the nuts?"

"He was trying to kill me."

"Oh, right. What happened?"

"Not much, just kind of closed his or her legs but didn't collapsed like I'd expected."

"Could be wearing a cup." Tucker pointed out.

"Or it could be a girl. Is Vlad still hanging around with that girl?"

"Let me check." Tucker set down his cocoa and unzipped his parka just enough to reach inside and pull out his PDA. He tapped in something and watched the results appear on his screen. "Hey, not only is he still with her, they're in town."

"In town!" Danny exclaimed.

"Well, in Cleveland, that's not that far away. Something to do with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."

"Is Vlad buying it?"

"Nah, just making a contribution to it. -- Oh, lord, this will make you laugh. He's donating a guitar once owned by Ember McLain!"

"Say-my-name Ember?"

"That one.

"Did he steal it from her in the ghost zone?"

""Apparently not. It's described as an early Les Paul. The ceremony is set for two hours from now."

"You think I should fly over there and take a look?"

"No, I was thinking that if the silver knight was someone in Vlad's entourage, they would probably have to leave about the time you said that silver knight broke off the fight, so they could get back to Cleveland in time for the ceremony.

"Vlad doesn't travel with an entourage. People with secrets to keep generally don't."

"Just his girlfriend." Tucker reminded Danny.

"Someone I've never heard of before and apparently has no existence prior to hooking up with Vlad. It doesn't make sense."

Tucker slipped his PDA back inside his coat. "Dan, my man, you look whiter than you usually look. Ol' Doc Farley diagnoses shock and recommends you get a hot dog and some fries, maybe a double order because I'm feeling hungry. Oh, and some more hot cocoa. This one is starting to freeze...."

***

It was a large auditorium so Danny was able to linger in the far back corner, high, near the ceiling while Vlad Master and his date mingled with people on the stage. Stage hands were working quietly in the background breaking down sets and scenery used for the ceremony. Vlad, attired in an immaculate white tuxedo looks suave and commanding as he usually did. One of the richest men in the world, he knew the world was his oyster and took pride of ownership in things. His things. His people. Whatever.

Danny got out the digital video camera he had borrowed from his parent's laboratory in the basement of FentonWorks. It had a 10x zoom making it almost as good as the high power binoculars of her father's that Sam offered. Danny wanted to record as much as he could about Vlad's mysterious girlfriend but he didn't know whether Vlad had a Ghost Sense like he did that warned him when other ghosts were near-by. Vlad had never acted like he did but Masters was a wily man and hide many of his talents from view. Danny had decided not to take any chances and stay as far away from Vlad tonight as possible.

He turned the camera on, aimed it at the stage and zoomed in as far as it would go. It was like standing not ten feet from the woman. She was clutching Vlad's arm just as she had in the picture Jazz had shown him weeks before. She was wearing a sleek green dress with a high neck and long sleeves. The hem glided just above the floor with only a hint of a toe sticking out from under the dress. Blonde hair flowed down her neck and shoulders. The hair was arrow straight and almost platinum in hue. Large black sunglasses covered her eyes leaving only a little bit of cheeks and chin visible. What he could see of her face was smooth, flawless. The nose was neither too small or too large, neither hooked nor upturned.

She stood for a long while as Vlad talked to various people. As time passed her face seemed to sag. The bright look and perky attitude was fading away. She leaned in to whisper something to Master then dropped his arm and glided over to a chair at the side of the stage and sat down. There were arms on the chair and she left one hand resting on it. After a moment she began drumming her fingers on the arm. Outwardly she still looked serene and almost ethereal but her fingers pointed to someone a lot more impatient.

Danny stopped the camera then drifted up into the trusses of the roof. There was a false ceiling below him now. Thick enough to reflect music from the stage down towards the audience but gaps between the tiles let Danny keep an eye on the stage. He drifted to a position closer to Vlad but higher up. Even if Vlad could sense another ghost around Danny figured that he wouldn't think to look overhead. And if he did, all he would see was ceiling. Danny wished he could hear what Vlad was talking about but he was too far away to hear anything. He took some more footage of Vlad and Felixa but neither seemed to be doing anything.

At last Vlad shook hands with his last visitor and went to collect his date. She said something and from the set of her lips it wasn't anything pleasant. Vlad took her elbow and steered her towards the back of the stage. From the way she seemed to lurch Danny suspected he wasn't holder her arm out of politeness. For a moment the camera caught a sideview of Vlad Master's face. It had that stonily, angry look that Danny was all too familiar with.

Danny followed them through the clearstorey of the theater to the backstage entrance. A chauffeur was waiting for them there. He held a fur coat for Felixa to put on, then a heavy cloth coat for Vlad. He opened the stage door and the three filed out.

Danny stuck his head through the brick of the theater's wall and watched them climb into a stretch limo and drive away. Danny debated following them but decided he had pressed his luck enough tonight. He put the camera in the backpack he was wearing and on a whim, turned invisible and slipped down to look at Ember's guitar. He remembered how Ember had made him think he was in love with Sam -- as a way to get himself killed. He remembered how determined he had been to be next to Sam, how everything about her seemed perfect. How happy he felt in knowing that he loved her. How much of that, he wondered had been Ember's mind control? That was all long past. He didn't feel that way about Sam anymore. He liked her because she was smart and funny and understood him better than anyone else. At least that's what he told himself as he lifted up into the sky and headed back to Amity Park.

The next day Jazz disappeared.

***

Sixteen year old daughters like their alone-time. So Maddie Fenton thought nothing of not seeing Jazz return from school or not seeing her camp out in the living room watching her 'stories.' (Intervention, Hoarders, Half-ton Teen, etc). Danny had seen her leave school and get into her car, a rattle-trap Chevette. Sometimes she would offer him a ride home but had made it clear that if she hadn't offered the ride, Danny wasn't welcome in the Jazzmobile. He assumed she had gone off somewhere with friends and so wasn't worried. But when the family sat down for dinner and one chair remained empty. The Fenton's knew something was wrong.

Danny ran upstair to check her bedroom. No Jazz. Jack Fenton ambled outdoors to see if her car was parked in back in its usual place. It wasn't. Maddie called her cell-phone and only got her voicemail. From there Mrs. Fenton called a widening number of Jazz's friends trying to find her. Danny tapped into her Facebook account and asking for her to call home. Looking up he was startled to see that his mother had aged years in just the few minutes that they knew Jazz was missing. Jack Fenton ambled back into the house looking puzzled and disturbed. He picked up the landline phone and called 911. As was usually the case with his father and authority, the call did not end well. The sticking point being that the police did not investigate missing persons cases for 24 hours unless there was clear evidence that a crime had been committed. He hung up with a growl.

"Didn't you put a GPS unit in Jazz's car?" Danny asked, hopefully.

"Jazz didn't like the idea that we were keeping tabs on her," his father grumbled. "Not that we were. It's just nice to know where she is at any moment in time."

"I'm surprised you didn't 'chip' us." Danny said.

"Well -- yes. Erm. The technology wasn't ready at the time."

"You were going to 'chip' us!"

"Just for your own good. If we had we'd know exactly where Jazz is. As it is we'll have to guess."

Danny rolled his eyes and tried to avoid saying anything more. Not for the first time he wondered what it was like to grow up in a normal family. While his parents were making more phonecalls, Danny sent Jazz an email knowing that it would be uploaded to her cellphone as well. He opened an IM session and sent out a call for her there. She didn't respond to any of these queries.

Danny drummed his fingers on the case of the laptop while he watched his parents pace about the living room. His father's usual booming voice was reduced to a whisper.

His parents were baffled because they couldn't imagine Jazz having an enemy in the world. Danny knew otherwise. Because Jazz had helped Danny on several occasions to defeat ghosts they were as likely to take their vengeance out on her as they were on him. One in particular would consider her an impediment to his plans.

Danny opened another IM session and flagged Tucker. "I need to know Vlad's location NOW!!!!!!!!" he wondered if he had used enough exclamation points as he hit 'sent'.

Tucker responded after a minute or two.

"WTF?"

"Jazz is gone" Danny IMed. "I think Vlad took her. I need to know where he is right now."

"OMG! On it."

Danny wondered how long it would take for Tucker to get a trace on Vlad Master. And how he was going to get away from his parents once Tucker told him where to find him.

"Jack! They're found Jazz's car!" his mother announced. "It's on 17,000 West Outer Drive. They want one of us to come out and identify the car."

"But they already identified the car as Jazz's." Jack objected.

"They probably want someone to say if there's any sign of a struggle in the car," Danny explained.

"Can't they tell by looking?" Maddie asked.

"Have you seen her car? It isn't like her bedroom, Mom. It looks more like my room."

"Oh." his mother said softly, then a resolute look came over her. "Hold down the fort, dear," she told her husband, "I'll run over and look at the car." She pulled the goggles of her jumpsuit down from where they rested on her forehead, a sign of her seriousness.

But as she turned towards the door, Jack Fenton took hold of her shoulder and pulled her back. "You hold down the fort. I'll go. You're -- better with all these gadgets and stuff." He pulled the goggles off her face and kissed her. "I'll do this."

Danny had rarely seem his mom cry, or be confused, or stopped from doing what she'd determined had to be done. She lay her head on her husbands shoulder and quietly sobbed. "Oh, Jack," he heard her cry, and had to look away, unable to bear seeing his parent's grief.

The scuff of shoes on the floor brought his attention back around. His father was heading towards the back door. "Dad, wait! I should go with you. I've been in Jazz's car more than you have. I think I know what it looks like normally better than you do." He had shoved aside his laptop and hopped out of the sofa as he spoke. Jack looked at his wife for a second then nodded his head.

Danny had barely cinched up his safety harness in the family RV, the euphemistically titled armored half-track assault vehicle before his father punched the accelerometer and they peeled out of the garage at 60 MPH. Jack Fenton dodged and weaved through traffic like a maniac but the usual glee on his face was gone. Danny pulled out his phone and texted Tucker to reply any responses there. Tucker had just replied with an 'OK' when his father jammed on the brakes, sending the RV into a skid that slid them around in a half circle, ending with then a foot from the curb and six feet behind Jazz's ancient Chevette. Danny didn't even know you could make a half-track vehicle slid.

"Dr. Fenton?" a man in a cheap suit standing near the car came over with his hand extended. "Detective Chandler. I'm in charge of the scene. Is this your daughter's car?

"Oh yeah. 1978 Chevette. Just like my first car. Hmmmm. Except mine was blue and this one is --ah -- Danny, what color would you say this car this?"

"Not-blue, Dad." Danny said getting out of the RV and walking up to Jazz's car. Sitting at the side of the road here in a empty part of the downtown it looked sad and pathetic.

The police man was still talking to his father. "If you could be so -- hey! Son! Please don't touch the car!"

Danny jerked back from the passenger side window he had been peering through. "Sorry," he said, then a thought came to him. "You know I've been in this car lots of times. I'm sure my fingerprints are all over the place."

"But we don't want your prints overlaid on earlier prints or smudging latents." This was from another man, sitting in the back of a van packed in front of Jazz's car. He had a winter jacket on with "Crime Scene" embroidered on the back. Danny nodded and jammed his hands in his pockets so they wouldn't be tempted to stray.

After a moment he walked over to the CS man. "That's my sister's car. She takes me home from school every so often. The back seat looks pretty normal. She always throws her books and papers in there, The front seat -- she always kept the front seat open in case she wanted to pick someone up. But now there's papers strewn all over it. I think someone threw them there. And, I'm not sure but I think the driver's seat has been moved. I could be sure if I could sit in it for a second."

"I'll ask the detective," the man said. He walked over to the detective. They talked for a moment. The man came back and pulled a pair of disposable rubber gloves from a pocket. "Put these on, make as little contact with the car as possible. We don't want you smudging any prints."

Danny got into the car and found he couldn't reach the pedals. "Oh, yeah, the seat has been moved back. Way back. The keys are in the ignition."

"We know. Just leave them there for now."

Danny was about to get out when he noticed the radio. '78 Chevettes didn't have pre-sets or even FM. Behind the glass screen there was just an indicator on a pulley in front of a card showing where the radio was turned to.

"Someone changed the radio," he called out. That brought both the detective and the crime scene investigator over. As they peered inside the car Danny explained.

"Afternoons my sister liked to listen to a psychology call-in show on WTLK-548. This looks to be set to 960..."

"The Edge." the CS man said. "My sons listens to that all the time. Grunge-metal. New rock.

"Jazz likes classical and soft pop."

Danny got out of the car and the Crime Scene Investigator got out a camera and started taking pictures of it from all angles, starting with the radio.

"Does you sister have any friends who's into contemporary grunge rock?" The detective asked. Danny shook his head.

He walked back to the RV and leaned against the grill. His conviction that Vlad had grabbed his sister was coming apart. Vlad would never have left her car out in the open like this, and he wouldn't have done anything so amateurish as to change the setting on her radio. And he certainly would not have changed it to modern rock. Danny was pretty sure that if Vlad listened to any kind of music it would be the same 90s music his parents liked. He felt his phone vibrate in his pants and pulled it out. It was Sam. She wrote: "Tucker told me. How can I help?" Below that was a missed call from Tuck. Danny was surprised he hadn't felt the phone vibrate earlier but that sometimes happened. It read" "Vlad's in town at the Kingsfront Hilton. Leaving later today in his private jet."

"Thxs" Danny texted.

Danny puzzled for a minute over where the Kingsfront Hilton was then realized that it was not more than a mile away. Conveniently close, Danny thought.

"Excuse me, Daniel?" it was the detective. "Do you know if your sister has any friends who live in this area?"

"No one lives here," Danny told the detective. The area was a hodge-podge of retail and office buildings, none much over five stories in height. The roads were empty, litter collected in corners where no one ever bothered to come around to clean. He noticed that the detective hadn't written anything down. "Most of her friends live south of the school, around Columbus Square." This he wrote down.

"Would you say your sister was a careful driver?"

The oddity of the question caused him to glance at the detective but the man was wearing a poker face. "Jazz is a very careful driver. Almost obsessively so." The detective wrote that down.

"So she not likely to scrap her car against things?"

"There are so many scratches on that car, who knows which one are fresh."

The detective went 'hmmmm', closed his notebook and went back to the car without explaining anything.

Danny followed him back and noticed where the Crime Scene tech was kneeing by the front left fender of Jazz's car. He was picking at loose material in a scratch there. It had to have been a fresh one because the turned up paint and metal was still bright and shiny.

Danny knelt by the tech who promptly waved him away with a "stand back, please." But as he moved back Danny could see several more fresh scraps on the car. Squinting at what the technician was picking up Danny asked, "Is that paint or metal you're collecting?"

"We won't know until we get it back to the lab."

Danny wasn't sure if it was paint or metal either, but whichever, it was silvery colored. He found himself thinking of the silver knight. It could easily have forced Jazz in her car off the road and subdued her. The knight was kind of large in its armor so it would have had to push the driver's seat back to drive the car here. But why change the radio station? He remembered the video he had of Felixa Cowen drumming her fingers on the chair while waiting for Vlad to finish his smoozing. Now there was a woman who would change radio stations in someone else's car, no matter how long or short the ride was. But what did some bored, rich party-girl want with his sister?

Maybe this was still Vlad's plot but if Felixa was the pilot inside the silver knight armor that had attacked him and now seemed to have abducted Jazz, what did she get out of all this? There was only way to find out and he's have to ditch his Dad to do it. Danny ran his eyes all around the neighborhood. assessing each object there for its usefulness. The moment he was sure he had mapped out the best route he started running. "Dad!" he called excitedly, "I see something!"

He was well ahead of them before his father and Detective Chandler took off after him.

As he had hoped an alley branched off from the street here. Danny ducked into it, changed into Danny Phantom, turned invisible and flew away by the time the two adults had reach the intersection. Danny wasn't sure what he was going to tell his parent later. He hoped by the safe return of Jazz to avoid all such awkward questions.


	3. Chapter 3

The Kingsfront Hilton was easy to find. It was a modern glass-fronted building twenty stories tall surrounded by an ocean of parking lot. The tenth richest man in the world would accept nothing less then the best room in the hotel and that was always the Penthouse, so Danny flew straight up there. He landed behind an elevator equipment building. The roof of the hotel was divided into two parts, separated by a six foot high modesty fence. The part Danny was on was a collection of elevator towers, air conditioning plants and ventilation ducts. Looking through the gaps in the modesty fence he could see that the other side had a large terrace, a putting green, small swimming pool (now covered for the season) and what looked like a helicopter pad.

"Wow." Danny murmured despite himself. He looked around the penthouse proper and spotted a clutter of patio tables, folded umbrella and extra chairs stashed in a corner of the apartment for the season. The furniture was covered with tarps but it looked like a small person could squirm their way around the pile, Danny turned invisible, walked through the fence and sprinted to this new cover.

A set of sliding doors filled the wall at the end of the penthouse next to Danny's hiding place. One was open a little bit. He ducked under the tarp covering a patio table and found he could put an ear almost into the door's opening while still staying under the tarp.

Lifting the tarp a little bit he looked into the room, a den of sorts with a fireplace and clusters of chairs. Vlad was pacing in the middle of the room while Felixa lounged on one of the chairs. The silver knight stood in a corner of the room, its back opened. An electric cord ran from a wall outlet to a connection somewhere inside the open robot. A second electric cord ran from the wall to somewhere under Felixa's hair behind her ear. Danny's eyes bugged in surprise. Felixa was a robot? That didn't seem right. Tucker had mentioned the possibility but Danny had dismissed it at the time. Vlad Masters was too vain a man to go around with a pretend automatron girlfriend.

"I don't know why we can't do it right now?" she suddenly asked. "We've got all the necessary equipment and frankly this body is beginning to suck as a host."

"I said we'd do it in Wisconsin and that's where we will do it." Vlad snapped, "Don't cross me on this, woman."

"But Vladdie sweetie, what does it matter if we do it here or there. I can be a lot more friendly with my own body."

"I didn't agree to this scheme out of a desire for your body. Or hers. You're here as my 'girlfriend' only because you need my proximity to survive."

"I do pretty good in the 'bot over there."

"For an hour or two, maybe three, then you come crawling back to me."

"That's why I want to take over her body now! So I won't have to always be clinging to you for support."

"And that's why you are going to wait until _I_ say its time for the procedure."

"What's Wisconsin got that this place hasn't?"

"A loyal workforce for one. My people don't question what I do in my home. I don't have to explain a body to them. Here we're always being interrupted by housekeeping. People would ask questions here. That's why we wait until we're back to Wisconsin. Come, my pet, it won't be that long. Another day at most, then you'll be free to roam the world again. And we can get on with a plans for revenge on the rest of her family."

"I get to do the boy, right?"

"As much as I regret not doing him myself, yes, you can kill Danny Phantom."

"And my former partners?"

"And your partners," Vlad said with great weariness. "But first we have to get out of Amity Park without anyone suspecting that we have the girl. That's why I did not want you to take her today. It was suppose to happen on a day when we were not known to be in town."

"I'm tired of waiting. Let's do it and be done with it..."

"Shut up, you stupid girl, and let me think!" Vlad ordered. "We've got to get her to the airport undetected. That won't be easy." Felixa crossed her legs then crossed her arms and sulked. Vlad ignored her as he continued to pace the room.

Danny crawled back to the other end of the pile of patio furniture and climbed out from under the tarps. It sounded like Jazz was being held here. Maybe he could sneak her out before before Vlad got wise to him.

He flew down to the other end of the penthouse, thinking that if the social area were there then the bedrooms would be in the other direction. There were some sliding glass doors there as well. Cautiously Danny looked in. He saw a large room paneled in dark wood. Some brightly colored abstract paintings hung on the walls, lightening the mood somewhat. There was a stone fireplace in one corner surrounded by a sofa and several armchairs. In another corner was a Jacuzzi but holding pride of place was an enormous bed. It was the largest bed Danny had ever seen, looking like two or three beds had been pushed together and covered by one endless comforter. And laying on one edge of the bed was his sister.

Danny looked around carefully to be sure no one else was in the room, then walked through the glass doors and over to his sister.

"Jazz?" he called softly. When there was no response he called a little louder and shook her shoulder.

This time she aroused slightly, opening blurry eyes and staring at him blankly. "Danny?" she asked.

"Jazz, come on. We've got to get out of here." He pulled her up into a sitting position.

"Is it supper time already?" she asked dully, then fell back onto the bed.

"Jazz!" he called but she didn't respond. She must be drugged, Danny thought. He wondered what they had given her and if it was safe. Should he take her straight to a hospital or go back to his Dad and the police. He looked around and found where her winter coat had been thrown as well as her purse. He got them, dropping them next to her on the bed. He pulled Jazz back up and tried to wrestle her into her coat. As he picked up her other arm he noticed that a big plastic clamp was attached to her middle finger. A wire ran from the clip to a device on a wheeled stand parked next to the night stand. In small letters at the top it read "Yellowsprings Medical Supplies" and below that "Pulse/Oxy monitor. Several LED panels were below that. Danny had no idea what the numbers meant but to get her coat on he was going to have to remove the clip. When he did so the displays all went to "---" and the machine starting pinging.

He struggled to get her other arm in her sleeve but she was so limp that it seemed hopeless. He had to get out before Vlad heard the alarm on the machine. Finally he just pulled the coat around her, stuck her purse inside his jumpsuit, which otherwise had no pockets and was hoisting Jazz over his shoulder when a sound made him turn around. Vlad Masters and Felixa Cowen had stormed into the room. Vlad pulled up with a sharp "Daniel!" Felixa still had an electric cord dangling from a socket behind her ear. Vlad changed forms instantly. Like Danny, a circle of light rose out of his waist, split in two and raced to either ends of his body. For Vlad this happened so far that it was like a puff of light and Vlad Masters was replaced by ghost villain Vlad Plasmeus.

Danny took a step back, pushing his sister into a little better balance on his shoulders.

"I can see you're busy," Danny temporized. "I'll just be going." He headed towards the glass doors.

"Stop him!" Felixa ordered. "He's got my body."

"My sister's body," Danny corrected, "And she's going to keep it."

"What are you waiting for? Kill him. Kill him now!" the woman-android thingy ordered

"Daniel," Vlad became, then stopped, uncertain what he wanted to say next. Felixa growled and leaped for Jazz's foot.

"Stop him, he's getting away."

Danny tried to pull his sister loose from Felixa's grasp but she was holding on tightly.

In pulling on her Danny was swung around to stare at Vlad Plasmeus. The normally arrogant and domineering fiend looked conflicted and doubtful.

"What's it going to be, Vlad? Danny challenged. "Are you going to let me take my sister and go, or is going to be the final breech between you and the Fenton's?"

"Kill him!" Felixa shouted. "He's taking away my body. You were going to kill him eventually. Do it now and be done with it." Despite all her tugging Danny was slowly making progress towards the glass doors.

"It's not your body, lady. This is my sister and she's going to stay my sister. And don't look for help from your boyfriend, I think he's considering what happens if he tries to attack me."

"What's there to consider, brat. He could kill you in an instant."

"And he might kill Jazz in the process. Then where would you be?"

"I'll just find another. She's not the only one that would work. She was just on my list, is all."

"Your list?" For a moment Danny had a vague memory of someone else with a list. He shook off the thought, focused on what was before him. "As Vlad knows, I'm a lot harder to kill then you think. And if we fought for even a minute thus apartment would be torn to shreds. There would be all sorts of embarrassing questions if that happened. Questions even the world's tenth richest man might find hard to answer. Isn't that right, Vladdie?"

"Don't be insolent, child," Vlad Plasmeus finally snapped.

"Who's wearing the pants in the family, eh? You know it's better to let me go with my sister then explain what's she doing in your apartment in the middle of a city-wide Amber Alert."

"He's lying. Don't listen to him," Felixa shouted. Her hold pulled one of Jazz's shoes loose. She fell backwards for a second then seized on Jazz's other foot. She turned to plead with Vlad. "We can kill him and implant me in her body and clean up all the evidence before anyone is the wiser. Come on sweetie, do this one thing for me."

Vlad suddenly went for glaring at Danny to glaring at the woman. "Shut up, you stupid woman," he snarled and backhanded her so hard that she stumbled across the room, tripped over one of the chairs near the fireplace and disappeared from view. "As for you, Daniel, if you care for the life of your sister I would suggest putting her down now."

"She's going with me. I don't think you want to start a fight with me now when the police are less than a mile away searching for Jazz. Dad's with them. He may not know you and I are ghosts but the instant we start fighting his city-wide ghost detectors are going to go off."

"What city wide detectors, Daniel. I would have known about something like that if they really existed.

"We'd still show up on his personal ghost detector. He never leaves home without one. With Dad so close you'd never be able to hide all the evid--"

Danny stopped speaking in surprise as the silver knight came creeping into the bedroom. It's one remaining spectral baton was raised and blazing.

Vlad must have seen something in Danny's glance past him for he started to turn just as the baton crashed down on his head. He fell like a poled ox.

"Don't you ever call me 'stupid' old man!" Felixa's voice came from the armored suit.

"You killed him!"

The silver knight looked down at the fallen ghost. "Hardly. But so what if I did? He was beginning to cramp my style. Just like you are." The armored suit advanced on Danny.

"Why did you attack my sister? What did she ever do to you?"

"Everything! Don't you get it? Don't you have the slightest idea who I am?"

"Should I?" Danny felt himself bump up against the glass patio door. In a moment he would phase through them but for now he really wanted to know who this woman in the armored suit was.

"Good grief! I'm working with idiots. Vladdie kept going on how smart you were; how we had to be extreme careful around you. But you're an idiot! Who do you think I am. My name was right out there for all to see. Felixa, an obviously name up name from Felix, as in Felix the _Cat_. Cowen -- one letter away from Bowen. I'm Kat Bowen, you stupid, stupid little boy!"

"How did you get out of the Ghost Zone?" Danny asked, appalled. Kat Bowen had been one of the Extreme Ghostbreakers until her partner's rampant misogyny had driven her insane. She had tried to steal Danny's ghost powers so she could kill them in an ironic manner. But the procedure had backfired, killing her instead. Danny had hustled to get her dying body into the Ghost Zone so that her astral body, at least, could survive. Because of the damage to her astral body Kat Bowen could not safely leave the Ghost Zone. At least that's what Danny had thought.

The silver knight paused in its advance, slapped the electrified baton in its other hand and laughed. "I did what you told me to do -- I made friends. From Kitty I learn that one could survive in the Real World by overshadowing a body after getting them to wear artifacts from their body."

Danny remembered how Kitty's boyfriend, Johnny 13 had cleverly got his sister to wear Kitty's jewelry and jacket. Only Johnny's wandering eye and Kitty jealousy had made it possible for him to rescue Jazz.

"Of course I didn't have an jewelry to use. In fact all you left me with was one thin blouse."

"You were the one who thought they had to be naked when stealing my powers. I didn't really have time to find the rest of your clothes and get you into the Ghost Zone in time."

"Oh, frack that! It's never your fault is it!"

"You're the one who said she was crazy."

"Crazy like a fox! Ha ha ha ha!

Danny shifted Jazz's weight a be a little more comfortable on his shoulder.

"Let me guess," Danny suggested. He was afraid that if he phased through the patio doors behind him Kat would attack with the silver knight and that would surely get his sister hurt. If he could keep her talking here long enough maybe something would come to mind to help him escape with his sister unharmed. "Next you made friends with Skulker. I recognize some of his technology. You stole that and made you some kind of a life-support device?"

"I don't think dear Skulker had ever talked to a woman before. He was like butter in my hands. Vlad took a lot more wheedling and stroking before he'd do thinks my way."

"I'm surprise Vlad ever took on a partner. He's always been a lone wolf kind of guy." Danny said.

"That was the beauty of the plan. Vlad would never lift a finger to harm you. He would always have an alibi because I would be doing the dirty work. And who would ever think of Vlad Master's 'little bit of fluff' was involved in any of this."

"And yet you called yourself 'Felixa Cowen' in hopes I'd catch on?"

"And even if you had figured it out, who could you tell? Your father? Who's blind to anything and everything Vlad does? Your mother, who doesn't know you're a ghost? Sure you could tell your sister but what could she do, she's just a normal. You'd just have to sit on that knowledge and know there's nothing you could do about it."

"Why team up with Vlad at all? Wait, I overheard you said something about needing his presence until you could bond with a host. How does that work? Don't you need him still?"

"These robot bodies can contain my astral body for a time but it needs energy, spectral energy that only comes from the Ghost Zone or from a ghost. I can stay away for a few hours in these suits before my body starts to evaporate. That will be more than enough time for me to get your sister and fuse with her body. Then I won't need him ever again "

Without warning the silver knight leaped at Danny. He phased through the door only to have it explode in a shower of glass as the heavy armored body carried on through it. Encumbered as he was with an unconscious Jazz, Danny had trouble firing a defense blast of blaster at the girl-monster.

He floated back, then rocketed down the length of the penthouse before depositing Jazz on the outdoor carpeting by the glass doors there. With her safely out of the way, Danny charged back. The silver knight -- Kat Bowen -- fired a couple rounds of ecto-plasm but Danny easily dodged those. He tried to spin in the air and give her a kick in the face with his foot like he'd seen in those kung fu movies but missed as she quickly bent out of the way.

She slashed at him with her flaming baton. Danny extruded a shield that blocked it. They sparred back and forth on the rooftop for a couple minutes to no advantage.

"For the longest time I thought I was fighting a dude in that armor," Danny said, remembering how incensed Kat Bowen got when called a dude. "If you didn't want people to think you were a dude you should have made it a little more feminine. Maybe put on some lipstick or something.

"Of course I knew I wasn't fighting Skulker, ever thought I recognized the tech because Skulker was a righteous dude. The dude never used defensive tech. I should have known from the beginning I was fighting a girl." He watched to see if his words were having any effect, but the solid metal helm of the knight hide any expression. She was slashing at him with harder, more reckless swings so he figured his taunts were working.

"I think your problem was that on your best day you still looked more like a dude than a gal. You acted more like a dude than a gal. People calling you a dude -- that was just an honest mistake."

This last was a lie since Kat, with her heavy breasts and sculpted hips would never be mistaken for a man.

"Stop calling me a dude!" Kat screamed and leaped at Danny with all the accelerated power her armored suit could give her. Danny phased intangible and let her fly right through him. He spun around and prepared for her next attack only to find he was standing on air. Backing away from her vicious swings of her baton, Danny had walked across the width of the rooftop, through the parapet and was floating twenty stories up on the other side. Kat's leap had taken her twenty feet forth out. Just as she began to fall the rocket pods extruded from the sides of her waist and fired. Danny had been looking for some kind of an opportunity to end the fight and now he saw his chance. With a razor sharp beam of ecto-plasm he cut off one of the rocket pods. The other pod tried to angle to compensate but it was just to much. The silver knight pinwheeled into a spiral and fell twenty stories to the pavement below. The landed with a loud, heavy thud. Danny waited a moment just in case it moved but the silver knight lay where it fell, a crumpled heap of metal and electronics.

Danny flew back to where he had left Jazz. He picked her up and tried to awaken her but whatever drug they had put her on was still keeping her half-asleep. He bent to pull her over his shoulders when.....

***

Danny awoke to a splitting headache. Jazz was nowhere to be seen. Looking around he saw that he was still in ghost form. A brass bookend lay on the roof next to him. That would explain the headache. But who'd wielded it? Danny staggered back the length of the penthouse to the bedroom. Looking through the broken glass of the patio door he saw his sister spread out of the bed again. Only how some kind of large helmet was fitted over her head. The Felixa Cowen automatron was fussing with it. A thick cable ran from the helmet to a mate laying on the other side of the bed. Without recognizing any of the technology Danny guessed this was the machine for fusing Kat Bowen's astral body to Jazz's body.

"How did you get out of the silver knight?" Danny asked, entering the room.

Kat spun around, showing a small blaster in her hand. It was one Jazz kept in her purse in case she was attacked by ghosts. "I should have known you'd have a thick head." Kat growled. "Well that's OK because you can just stay where you are and watch the end of your sister -- as you know her."

Danny stayed where he was. Jazz's blaster was small but he know for a fact that it was very powerful. It only had energy enough for a couple shots but all it would take was one to put him out.

"It's kind of handy having two body around. Vladdie-pooh certainly never saw what was coming." She laughed. "For someone who spent all his time figuring out how to double-cross people Vlad sure never expected to be double-crossed by me!" She looked over to where Vlad's body still lay on the floor. "What a schmuck. When you destroyed my battle armor there was nothing keeping me in the suit. In fact, since you destroyed the protective circuits that kept my damaged astral body from evaporating in this realm I had to find another body. Vlad forgot that this isn't a human body that could be knocked out with a blow. That's' how I could escape to the armor, and back when the armor was destroyed."

"You can exist outside these androids?"

"It only takes a millisecond to transfer. It's rough but not fatal. And once I have your sister I won't have to worry ever again about falling apart!"

The automatron moved around the bed, always holding the gun aimed at Danny. One-handed, she picked up the other helmet and slipped it on her head. It must have been already fitted to her head because she lay down on the bed without further adjustment. She picked up Jazz's hand and fitted the gun in it, leaving her hand over Jazz's. "Don't get any ideas," she instructed. "I can still shoot you any time I want. And once the process is started, interfering will kill both your sister and me and I don't think you want that, do you?"

She laughed and picking up a box with a large red button, pressed it. An explosion sounded from the other end of the penthouse. "That would be the incendiary device," she explained. "Nothing like a good fire to clean up a lot of embarrassing evidence." She tossed that box to one side and picked up another remote from the night stand beside her. "Say good-by to your sister," she snarled.

"No!" Danny screamed. "You don't have to do this."

"But I do. I need a body within the next hour. She's it."

"We can work something out..."

Kat Bowen only laughed. Then exploded.

Half the bed went up in a fiery blast of ecto-plasm. The ball of fire rose to the ceiling and spread across it before fading away. But Danny wasn't watching.

He had raced across the room to scoop up his sister and pull her away from the expanding fire from the burning bed. He threw off the helmet on her head and turned to leave.

Vlad Plasmeus was standing in the corner where he had been felled.

"Ingrateful, backstabbing .... girl." He snarled.

From out of the fire drifted the faint form of a young woman, tall, thin with frizzy hair. "Vlad, sweetie," it was saying, "It wasn't what you think. I had to do it. He was going to get her away from us." She was pointing at Danny. "He knew everything. We had to stop him or the whole plan would have fallen through. It was the only way."

As Danny watched the faint image of Kat Bowen was getting fainter.

"You're going to let her die?" He asked Vlad.

"I don't give second chances to traitors."

"But..."

"Why should you care, Daniel. She's tried to kill you twice as well as your sister. Isn't better this way."

Instead of answering, Danny lower Jazz to the floor long enough to whip out a Fenton Thermos he always carried one strapped to his back and aimed it at the quickly disappearing form of Kat Bowen. He popped open the lid and hit and "intake" button. With a faint swoosh she disappeared into the containment field.

"She'll just try to kill you again, Daniel"

"Maybe. Maybe not." Danny said as he slipped the thermos back over his shoulder. "I don't know what you gave to my sister but I've got to get her to a hospital. You've got a burning penthouse to deal with. Oh, and a broken robot on the foot of the hotel."

"Considering this whole debacle, perhaps I should reconsider the whole woman thing. All the problems in my life seem to stem from woman... Good-by, Daniel. When next we meet, be sure I'll have a better plan in operation." Vlad Plasmeus strode from the bedroom towards the fire at the other end of the penthouse.

Danny didn't stop to wonder what he planned to do there. He picked up his sister and took to the skies. Fire truck sirens were already sounding in the distance. He flew back close to where Jazz's car was, changed back to Danny Fenton and waited to be found.

***

Danny announced himself by blowing out the doors to Skulker's hunting lodge in the Ghost Zone. The muscular body of the hunter sat on a throne at the end of a long hall, a fire roaring in a hearth near-by.

"I just had those doors repairs! There's a thing called a doorknob," a high pitched, squeaky voice complained. "Why can't anybody ever use it!"

"Who dare invade the sanctum of...." There was the faint sound of a slamming door. The voice continued but suddenly deeper pitched, "...Skulker?"

"I brought you a gift," Danny said.

Skulker quickly stirred in his chair. A gun extruded from the wrist of his suit.

"Uh, uh, uh! mine's bigger." Danny waved a Fenton Mk2 blaster that he held cradled in his arm. In the other hand was a Fenton Thermos, which he tossed onto the floor in front of Skulker's throne.

The ghost looked at the large weapon in Danny's arms, then retracted his. Instead a claw expanded out of another nodule and picked up the Thermos and brought it back to Skulker.

"A gift?" he wondered.

"I assume by now you've noticed that your back-up suit is missing."

"Am I to assume you had something to do with that?" Skulker asked. While everyone thought he was large, burly ghost, he was in fact little more than a foot tall imp. The body people saw was a automatron, like the one Kat Bowen had used. Danny had guessed that the Felixa Cowen body was Skulker's back-up suit, modified to fit her role as Vlad's girlfriend.

"No, but I think the person there," he nodded towards the Thermos, "might know something about it. The suit, by the way, got completely destroyed. Sorry about that."

Skulker looked at the Thermos for a time speculatively.

"Why bring this to me?" he asked at last.

"You know that old saying,'if you love someone, let them go...'"

"That makes no sense."

"Well, that's only half the saying. The rest goes, '...and if they don't come back. hunt them down like the dirty animal they are."

"So..."

"So I thought you might like to do a little hunting. I could have just released her into the Ghost Zone but what would she have learned from that? Nothing. She needs a lesson in not plotting against people. And I'm sure you can use the exercise."

"What do you get out of this?"

"All I've ever wanted, which is to be left alone." Danny cradled the big blaster and turned towards the door.

As he left Skulker continued to stare thoughtfully as the Thermos.


End file.
